Katz'njammer

Today I met a girl

Who loves British stuff as much as I do. It’s a bit different - she’s never been to the actual country - but she is a true anglophile, we can always tell the genuines from the ones who think it’s trendy. She has two Harry Potter tattoos, but they aren’t pretentious. Her Iphone cover has a photo of Big Ben on it, and she wants to go party with Prince Harry.

“Have you ever studied abroad?” I asked.

“No, but I really am hoping to do the student teaching in London,” she replied.

“You absolutely have to,” I said. I don’t know why I was being so encouraging and enthusiastic. We’d only just met.

I think it’s because I want to live vicariously through her.

“I’m trying to convince my parents to take us all there for my 21st birthday,” she told me.

“Yes,” I replied. “You definitely should go. Please, do it.”

Go. Just fucking go.

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 a.m. clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

—

Rosemarie Urquico

(ps I am totally this girl)

Smoke

I remember walking down that one, gritty asphalt road to the market that sold everything. It sold everything, but I don’t know to who - it seemed like all around me that no one had any money for everything. I guess because they would always ask us for money, and I’m sure they inflated their prices for us too. But even so, the prices were cheap to begin with. I really don’t know who was buying those things in the market, but somehow, they were bought.

People cooked things in the market - I often bought roasted sweet corn from a small, thin boy with skin the color of cocoa powder, sitting behind a makeshift grill. He wore orange flip flops. People cooked things using flames - that’s what made the smoke, made everything smell like a camp fire. Sometimes you could get an omelet, if you were on the go they found a plastic bag for you and slid it inside.

Everyone cooked over an open fire in Ghana. Microwaves don’t exist. There are no stoves or ovens, except those made from clay. You might be able to find a hot pot or a small range, but why bother? You can boil anything you need over the flames. Everyone else does, and it saves on electricity.

In Slovakia we made a fire to commemorate special anniversaries of Czechoslovak history. An eternal flame, no one really cared about it so much. We roasted Eastern European marshmallows over it and toasted bread and onions on the logs. My favorite sweater, the sweater I wore all the time, always smelled like singed wood. My favorite sweater kept my favorite smell.

We stayed in the Jizera Mountains during our last week in the Czech Republic, at a small pension made up of two cabins. It was bare bones but comfortable - the toilet gave off a raw sewage scent but what did you expect from a rural, former Communist town? The whole complex was heated by wood burning stoves. I sat near the largest, in the dining room, uploading four months of photos onto Sarah’s computer. She was making a slide show.

I started to cry.

A memory as I sip leftover beer at 11:08PM

I miss sitting in that makeshift kitchen, cupping my hands around a hot cup of tea to keep warm. I’d sit and eat my lunch, leftovers from the night before, and plot my next move. Was I going to fuck off to Slovakia so I could squeeze in a social life in a month’s time? Or should I stay in Prague and continue my quest to conquer modern Czech fashion and uncover the psychological ties to its people?

No. The raging-party-Prague I was told I would encounter had not lived up to its expectations. Not that I was a raging partier. But I didn’t feel I knew the city like I knew London, which was very well. It wasn’t the language barrier - you can communicate with people, even carry out a full-on conversation, with someone who doesn’t speak your speak.

No other American seemed to realize that however.

When I travel to a foreign country, I soak in the culture like a sponge. Even in Ghana, I attempted to blend in. The more one accepts outside customs into their own life, the more they can understand their own. “Participant observation” was an Anthropological field technique I fully abided by. How else can one truly make a cultural judgment call otherwise?

But I had few Czech friends, outside of Petr and Stepan. I had no one to practice Czech with, save my host mother. I even practiced my homework on my three year old host brother, but it always ended in him giving me a dirty look.

I couldn’t leave this country without having a reason to bring me back. That special cafe where you read Kafka and sat for hours nursing one cup of tea is not enough. You need a person to rehash old memories with. You need a person.

That’s why I went to Žilina.

I was drawn to the EVS volunteers on our previous visit to Stanica. Three were French, one was Latvian, and Dušan was a Slovakian youth. They were gregarious, joked around and lived on pizza (it also helped that Sarah picked up the tab at the restaurant we met them at). I was magnetized to their comradery and couldn’t help but notice the lack of conversation going on at my end of the table.

So I got up. I walked over.

“Can I share a seat with you?”

The tall, gangly, pock-marked boy with the large DSLR camera hanging around his neck accepted my advance, and made room.

I sat next to Dušan.

“Are you trying to learn French?” I asked the Latvian.

“Yes,” he replied. He had a tongue piercing, ear piercings, and a piercing on the dimple of his chin. “I am going to Paris soon. I am trying to learn some curse words.”

“We are teaching him all of the good ones,” Helene, I would later come to know, was more petite than me, but nearly twice my age.

“Do you speak French at all?” Audrey looked straight out of a Judy Blume novel - round-framed glasses, curly, bushy hair, a gap between her teeth.

“I like to think I do,” I replied. “Is that an egg?” I pointed at Dušan’s pizza. It was riddled with green peppers, red onions, olives, greasy cheese, black beans and sausage. In the center was an egg, sunny-side up.

“Why, yes, it is,” he grinned. “Would you like to try some?”

“No, that’s okay. You enjoy it.”

Dušan always ate pizza with fried eggs on it. “Mexican pizza” is what he called it.

I always got the margarita pizza from Pizzeria Don Giovanni. It was the cheapest and the best. And it always tasted better cold the day after.

They had brought cheap wine and good weed.

The food had been eaten but that didn’t mean I was done for the night. Dana was leaving in the morning, the evening had to go out with a bang. Or at least, a good story to tell.

I do believe this is one of the best.

Dušan had a funny way of talking and acting as though he were drunk all of the time. Mostly though, he was just relaxed and human. I don’t think it was his lack of English comprehension - he spoke it better than I - but more so the fact that, only Dušan knew what Dušan was thinking.

And for him, that was perfectly satisfactory.

Ints was more practical. Ints was humane. It was why I liked him so much. Even despite that terrible night in the snow, he never let on that I was a psychopath. I think he really did like me, but in the way that you like a person so much, you know everything would be ruined if you slept with them.

The wine was Rose-tinted. It was a token of Dušan and Ints’ appreciation, for me hosting them that evening. The French doors of my flat were drawn open and the November air was freezing. We all sat on my living room floor, bundled up in our coats, hats, scarves and gloves, smoking a shared joint. I looked out onto the porch where my mléko was chilling. I couldn’t put it anywhere else - the flat had not come equipped with a refrigerator.

Dušan sat sandwiched between the sectional and the glass-topped coffee table. He was directly in front of the TV. Dana and I sat together to his right. Ints was sitting on the rug but further away.

“Ah,” Dušan began, staring in front of at the shiny black screen. “It is like I am a television program.”

I looked to Dana, who looked to Ints, who looked to me. “Um, whaat the faack are you talking about?” Ints was always the inquisitor. His English was basically perfect, with a slight Latvian accent. He had bartended in Manchester, England for a year but I also could tell he was just a smart person in general. He was usually the only one who understood my slang - he was that good.

Dušan gestured towards the television. “It is my own show. And you are a special guest.”

Ints gave a nervous smile. “You aare so high, maan.”

“Come closer to the tee-vee,” requested Dušan, waving him over.

Dana and I could not control our laughter.

Dušan continued to comment on the wine to his opaque reflection. The other three of us just sat there and drank him in. Dušan was a cartoon character.

He was my best friend in Žilina.

Day 30. Triumph.

This day last year, I sat across from you at a table filled with your closest friends. I wanted nothing more than to be by your side, entertain you, watch your emotions up close and revel in them, knowing it was me who made you so happy. I sat across from you at that table, drinking sweet-laden drinks with a close friend who whispered in my ear, “You deserve him.”

This year, I’ll take my place next to you in that same venue at that same table - observing your smile, drinking in your hand on my knee, feeling the strength of the bond between us. You are my life, my sanctuary, you instill hope inside of me and give me the courage to pursue my dreams.

I love you, most ardently.

Events and occasions in life happen for reasons we never realize until they actually occur. It was not meant to be, so long ago. Our friendship waxed and waned but like a boomerang, it always came back to us, no matter the distance thrown. There are very few people in my life who come into it and remain there. I am elated above all else that you were one of them.

So long I thought I was steadfast, determined, independent and all-knowing of what my future was going to be and who would play an important role in it. I envisioned myself a wanderer, constantly searching for a life to live, a place to settle, a comfort and an ease. I would drift into and out of people’s lives as I’ve always done, making friends around the world but lacking companionship in the everlasting sense.

You have changed all of that, and I adore you for it.

For now I know where I want to be, what I want to do and how I want to live. Above all else, it is with you, my one and only, my soul mate in every sense of the word. This day last year, I thought I had lost you.

From this point forth, I’ll never let you go.

Day 26. Yourself.

Loves to travel.

Has never broken a bone.

Lets tea steep far longer in her cup than she probably should.

Really good at putting things together and fixing things around the house. Ikea is no challenge. Really.

A good listener.

Sometimes, a bad friend. Sometimes.

Cultured and worldly.

Organized, in a disorganized way.

Likes to do laundry, cook and empty the dishwasher.

Hates to vacuum, dust and wash the dishes.

Creative.

Confident.

Has remained a size 3 since eighth grade (and has the jeans to prove it).

Photographs.

Can honestly say she never pictured her life living as she is now.

Wants to adopt, preferably from India.

Digested the following at various points in her life: rabbit, rat, alligator, snails, haggis, maggots, FEBO, goat, and Olomouc cheese.

Believes she is of a different time.

Doesn’t wear makeup to work.

Indulges in imported British television.

Loyal.

Has never done it in the butt.

Preaches about a chemical-free lifestyle, as she munches on Cheetos.

Dreams about opening a cafe. She would advertise and create soups, salads, sandwiches and small entrees. Her best friend would manage the business side and would be the pastry chef. It would be called “Les Petite Amies.”

Defines her life by the experiences she’s lived.

Finds it difficult to “suck up” or “play the part” and thus is fairly authentic.

Can never seem to find vintage clothing that fits her.

Would get along with your parents.

Doesn’t know how to use a curling iron properly.

Enjoys the beach, but hates sand.

Wants to get her PhD in…something.

Doesn’t always appreciate what she has in the moment that she has it.

…your turn.

Day 25. Volcanoes.

I’d like to go to the wide, gaping mouth of a volcano and perch on its rigid edge, looking in. It must be exhilarating to watch the thick, foamy red-orange-with-a-hint-of-yellow lava, bubbling and burping like Grandma’s tomato sauce boiling on the stove. To think, your body would disintegrate instantly with the slightest skin-to-heat contact. Would you even feel any pain as the warmth sucked you down into its depths, preserving you forever?

To even just take a photo of its magnificence would please me.

There are so many things I want to do in life, and I know I will do a good majority of them.

I want to ride through the jungle on the back of an Asian elephant. I want to swim with dolphins and kiss their bottle-noses. I want to visit Dracula’s castle, I want to sleep in a haunted hotel room and smoke a cigar in Cuba. I want to sail a boat around a lake that is surrounded by snow-capped mountains. I want to walk on a glacier and bath in the blue lagoons if Iceland. I’d like to see a kangaroo in person, and snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef.

I want to sip espresso on the terracotta patio of a Tuscan villa, watching the sun rise behind rows of growing grapes and olive trees.

Like volcanoes, my memories are vivid, firey, and forever preserved in my mind. I want to fill my life with exciting experiences. I want to be able to tell my grandchildren stories about a life they can amount to, that they don’t have to stay in one place forever and that the world is there for them, if they want to see it.

Day 24. An important conversation, in the style of a script.

SCENE: A bedroom. A lamp on a nightstand next to a full size bed is the only source of light in the room. A man and a woman lay next to each other. They are naked, save for white bed sheets. They are holding each other after just having made love.

Kurt: I want to tell you something. And…please don’t freak out.

Violet (alarmed)…alright…

Kurt: (sighs)…God, this is so hard to say…uuuggghh…

Violet: (short) It’s okay. Just…tell me. Is something wrong?

Kurt: No! Oh God, no…no, it’s just that…(sighs again. He rolls over onto his stomach, buries is face in her chest)…I just…I love you, Violet. I just…love you!

Violet: (sigh of relief, followed by nervous laughter) That’s it?! Kurt you had me scared for a moment!

Kurt: I know, I’m just…I didn’t want to tell you, I mean, I was going to wait a while, but I just…can’t. I just couldn’t hold it in any longer. I mean, all the things you do for me, everything you say, what we had talked about before, and how we just had such amazing sex – everything makes me love you.

Violet: (smiles, hugs him closer) Well that’s because I love you too.

Kurt: You do?!

Violet: Of course I do! But you had to have known that, how could you not have known that?

Kurt: I know, I mean I always did, but I was just so scared, you know? I mean, I was so scared that you didn’t love me back.

Violet: Kurt, you’re my best friend. I’ve wanted to say ‘I love you’ since we started dating, but I thought that you would be the one to freak out. I mean it’s a pretty big deal!

Kurt: Ah…I’m just so happy right now!

Violet: You should be! God, this feels so awesome.

Kurt: I was so scared I’d lose you, that you would be going away from me and who knows when I’d see you again. I just wanted you to know before, well, even just ‘if’ anything ever happened.

Violet: I’m not going away, Kurt. Not anymore.

Kurt: (props himself up on his elbow) What do you mean?

Violet: I’m…I’m staying. For a while.

Kurt: Why?

Violet: Well, I was thinking about it the other day. I was thinking about how much I love traveling, going to new places, but I don’t really know why. I think it’s because I’ve always been searching for a place where I belong, a place where I fit in. I go from country to country, city to city, looking for that one place were I feel the most comfortable and at home, safe, secure. And I mean, it sounds corny I guess, but with you, I don’t feel like I need to be anywhere else. It’s like, I’ve been going to all of these places but what I needed, what I was searching for, well, I found it with you. And I…I don’t want to be anywhere else in the world unless you are with me.

Kurt: (kisses her) I really fucking love you.

Violet: Don’t ever stop.